Bon Voyage, Saigon!

The end of this trip, for me, was a little sad. While at the end of my three month long Africa trip last year, I was more than ready to come home, at the end of this trip, after only five weeks, I was not quite ready to trade my life of sightseeing and idleness for one of industry and responsibility in New York.

However, it was time for me to return home. I flew to Saigon from Bangkok for several final days of eating and shopping. Apparently, I've been enjoying the eating so much that four of my dresses, made to my measurements at the beginning of my trip, no longer fit. This is probably a good thing, as when I arrived in Saigon five weeks earlier, I was terribly stressed, badly sleep deprived and scrawnier than usual. Now, I'm well rested with a fully belly. My dressmaker let the dresses out several centimeters and I continued with the eating!

Some of my favorite meals in Saigon included fresh spring rolls with tofu and vegetables, fried spring rolls with crab, prawn paste on sugar cane (both pictured below), bamboo shoot salad, and of course, pho. One thing I rediscovered in Asia was a taste for sour salty things (such as green mangoes, and dried salted plums) which I seldom eat in New York. Every night, I went to a different upscale lounge for a specialty cocktail. This is one of my favorites: a Saigon Crush (Absolut Mandarin, passion fruit) at the Park Hyatt, Saigon accompanied by an evening torch music.
I also took a little time for some sightseeing. I visited the Cu Chi tunnels north of Saigon, where Viet Cong soldiers hid and conducted their guerrilla operations. Although these tunnels had been expanded to fit large tourist arses, they were incredibly narrow--it's necessary to crawl on your hands and knees, and they are very, very dark. Ahead of me was a young corn-fed American man who was having great difficulty squeezing through. "He's going to get stuck, with me behind him," I thought, and I speedily exited the tunnel at the next exit point.
Overall, I felt conflicted about the fact that the tunnels were a tourist attraction, complete with a firing range and multiple gift shops. The Vietnam War was a bloody war, lasting 20 years, with an American death toll of more than 58,000 service members. Although the booby traps and tunnels showcase the ingenuity of the Viet Cong fighters, the entire place was a theme park glorifying war. As a counterpoint, the War Remnants Museum (formerly the Museum of American War Crimes) in downtown Saigon showcased the human toll of warfare. It showed photographs of the My Lai massacre and Agent Orange victims (both American service members and Vietnamese civilians) and it chronicled the peace movement abroad.

It's amazing to me that Vietnam has been able to prosper after such a bloody war--it's a thriving, bustling, capitalist country. As Paul Theroux puts it, no one seems to be looking behind and scolding "Never forget." Rather, everyone is looking ahead, growing their businesses, becoming prosperous. Vietnam is an amazing country: I hope to come back some day!